Today's business enterprises typically store data in databases. There is an increasing awareness among such enterprises that responsible data protection includes database backup, refresh and cloning. Other frequently used procedures include database and application refresh and cloning. Database backup includes periodically replicating data stored on a primary storage system and moving the copy to a secondary storage system at a safe location. Database and application refresh includes periodically replacing data stored in a database and a small portion of data in the application on a secondary storage system with data from a database and application on a primary storage system. Database and application cloning includes periodically replacing data stored in a database and a medium portion of data in the application on a secondary storage system with data from a database and application on a primary storage system. Refreshed and cloned databases are typically used for development, testing, training or reporting purposes.
If a disaster occurs resulting in the destruction of data on the primary storage system, then the copy is recovered from the secondary storage system and used to reconstruct or clone the primary storage system. Unfortunately, given the large amounts of data used by today's businesses, performing database backup and/or database and application refresh or cloning has become a time consuming and labor intensive task due at least in part to a lack of industry standardization.
Some database management systems allow logical backup of databases using export and import utilities (e.g., ORACLE 9i). A logical backup involves reading a set of database records and writing them to a file. These records are read independently of their physical location. For example, the ORACLE Export utility reads a database, including a data dictionary, and writes the output to a binary file called export dump file. The ORACLE Import utility reads the binary export dump file created by the Export utility and executes embedded commands to recover the data. Because logical backup utilities typically do not recover transactions, take a long time to perform and sometimes lack referential integrity (e.g., export is done one table at a time), many businesses prefer physical backup over logical backup. Moreover, since logical backup data records are read independently of their physical locations, a database administrator (DBA) may have to set up tablespaces, datafiles and users before the import, to properly specify the physical destinations of database objects.
Several vendors have developed hardware and software solutions for performing physical backup. Hardware solutions typically require coupling data protection appliances to a network owned and/or operated by the business. While a hardware solution may provide some advantages, for many businesses those advantages will be outweighed by the cost of the hardware and its maintenance. The software solutions for physical backup typically include a user interface for initiating data cloning operations in an ORACLE application environment. Such solutions, however, may require installation of client software throughout the network, which can also cause an organization to incur significant installation and maintenance costs. Some businesses subscribe to an application service provider (ASP) or application management outsourcer for information technology (IT) support and may want the ASP or outsourcer to provide the service remotely without engaging internal personnel, or may not have in-house IT personnel to provide installation and maintenance services. For such businesses, these traditional hardware and software solutions may not be appropriate because they can incur additional overhead costs, which could adversely impact profits, or could be forced to engage internal personnel that could be focused on other matters (e.g., engaging or hiring in-house IT personnel).
Accordingly, what is needed is a cost effective and efficient system and method of providing automated physical database backup and/or database and application refresh or cloning across networked, heterogeneous environments without a need for hardware appliances or client software installations.